Editorial roundup

When a law is clearly deficient constitutionally, it shouldn’t be defended needlessly. Nor should picayune matters where there is almost zero chance of prevailing, such as the award of legal fees, be pursued to the ends of the possible legal terrain. Yet Republican officials in Ohio— motivated apparently by ideological considerations, rather than legal or practical ones —keep sticking taxpayers with legal fees racked up in voting-related lawsuits that the state should drop or settle.

This was underscored in a ruling last week by the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding a lower court’s order to Ohio to pay legal fees topping $2 million. (The appellate court said the lawyers’ bill should be recalculated, but it’s expected to clock in at about $2.5 million, since, as long as the appeals go on, the legal fees will continue to climb.)

The case at issue involves successful legal challenges to Ohio’s provisional balloting law, and is among many challenges spawned during what the court called “the turbulent saga of Ohio’s provisional voting regime.” It began in 2006 when the General Assembly, voting along party lines (Republicans for, Democrats against), passed an omnibus election law (Amended Substitute House Bill 3) sponsored by future Republican State Chair Kevin DeWine…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory that pregnant women should stay out of a section of Miami is not the most disturbing news about the Zika virus this week.

CDC officials’ warning was bad enough, to be sure. The agency said an outbreak of 14 cases of Zika in Miami’s Wynwood district was the reason for its advisory. Zika can cause birth defects.

Perhaps even more unsettling was the CDC’s tally showing more than 1,650 cases of Zika have been reported in the United States. Only in Florida has the disease been transmitted by mosquitoes. Other U.S. cases involve people who have traveled to Zika-ridden areas of the world or have contracted the disease by having sex with others infected.

But there is a catch to all that: Zika can be picked up by certain mosquitoes who bite people already infected. Then, the bugs can spread it to new victims.

That could mean that, at least in some areas, the growth of Zika could be exponential. And that means federal officials should make finding a vaccine and a cure for Zika a priority.